United Precat Inc. Plant Tour Pictures

United Precast, Inc. Plant Tour Pictures

11/6/08

United Precast, Inc. (UPI), located in Mount Vernon, Ohio, led our group on a tour of their two casting yards.

At the first yard we toured their 330’ long, I-girder, casting bed that was currently set up to cast three (3) I-girders end-to-end. UPI has found that casting similar girders end-to-end is the most efficient method. The yellow-painted steel towers at the ends of the casting bed and also in-between the girder ends in the casting bed are anchor points for the different strands. Currently these anchors can take up to 0.6 diameter strands in the varying standard AASHTO shapes. Plugged holes located at incremental locations in the bottom of the bed allows for stainless steel hold-down anchors to be bolted in-place as needed for draped strands. The top & bottom flange forms are removable to allow insertion of other standard flange shapes. UPI has two I-girder casting beds, both of which allow for different top & bottom flange shapes and web widths (the side forms move in-an-out as needed. Camber is not accounted for in the casting process as the bottom of the bed is level (flat). The prestressed strands create the required girder camber.

At the second yard we toured a casting bed for box beams. Here we witnessed a twin-celled box beam being cast. The white Styrofoam blocks are used to cast the voids in the box shape. The Styrofoam is typically left in place as it is too time-consuming to remove and adds minimal weight to the box beam. A bridge railing anchor plate is shown in one of the photos for ODOT’s newer TST railing. Some adjustment is needed with the stirrups and strands to allow for installation of these anchor plates.

In addition to I-girders and box beams, UPI also casts 3 & 4 -sided box culverts, precast wingwalls, noise barriers, manholes, etc. For more information on UPI, visit www.unitedprecast.net